The remote used by Fire TVs, Fire TV Sticks, Fire TV Cubes, and Fire TV Smart TVs has several secrets and hidden menus that are accessible by pressing and holding special button combinations. Some of these remote tips simply provide a quicker way to access certain aspects of the Fire TV interface, while others bring up hidden menus that are not accessible in any other way. Here is a full list of all such tips, secrets, and hidden menus related to the Fire TV remote.
Restart the Fire TV
Press and hold the SELECT and PLAY buttons simultaneously for about 5-10 seconds and the Fire TV will reboot. This is equivalent to pulling the power cable and plugging it back in but more convenient. This is handy to do if the Fire TV or an app isn’t working quite right.
Reset the Fire TV Remote
If your Fire TV remote is not working or not connecting no matter what you do, the first thing you should do is check the batteries. If you know the batteries are fine and still can’t get the remote to work, you can try resetting the remote itself. This procedure is different depending on the remote you have, so follow the appropriate instructions below:
- Non-Voice Remote (Remote has no microphone button): Press and hold the HOME button. While still holding HOME, press the MENU button 3 times. Release HOME and then press the MENU button 9 times.
- 1st-gen Voice Remote (Remote has microphone button but no power, volume, or guide buttons): Press and hold the LEFT and MENU buttons simultaneously for about 12 seconds.
- All other Fire TV Remotes: Press and hold the LEFT, MENU, and BACK buttons simultaneously for about 12 seconds.
After you’ve reset the remote, wait at least 10 seconds and then remove the batteries from your remote. Your remote is now reset so to connect it to your Fire TV, unplug and replug the Fire TV in, wait about 1 minute, then put the batteries in your remote. Lastly, press and hold the HOME button on your remote for about 10 seconds and it should pair with your Fire TV. If it doesn’t pair, repeat the steps from the start of this paragraph that start by removing the remote batteries.
Factory Reset the Fire TV
Factory resetting your Fire TV is the best way to solve any problem, but remember that doing so wipes everything off as if it were a new device. If your Fire TV issue is so bad that you can’t access the Factory Reset settings menu, then your only hope is to use a special remote button combination to initiate the reset. To do so, press and hold the RIGHT and BACK buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds. Once you’ve held it long enough, a selection prompt and countdown will appear giving you about 20 seconds to cancel the factory reset before it automatically begins.
Launch Developer Tools Menu
All Fire TVs have a hidden Developer Tools Menu that can show information about your device, like the System X-Ray bar. This menu is launched by holding a specific combination of buttons, but it’s very annoying and difficult to get the button combination right so I highly suggest you just use my Developer Tools Menu Shortcut app instead to launch it. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to try the button combination, then press and hold the SELECT and DOWN buttons simultaneously for about 5 seconds, then release both buttons and press the MENU button once.
Launch Network Diagnostic Menu
Fire TVs have a hidden network diagnostic menu with information about your device and network connection. Some of the helpful information on this menu includes your WiFi signal strength, noise level, and channel numbers. You can also select the “More” button to perform a throughput test, although, I have found that it fails quite often. Access the Network Diagnostic Menu by pressing and holding the REWIND and LEFT buttons simultaneously for about 5 seconds, then release both buttons and press the MENU button once.
Launch Quick Access Menu
Press and hold the HOME button on your Fire TV remote to launch a quick access menu from anywhere, even within apps. This has been part of Fire TVs for a very long time but many people still don’t know it exists. The quick access menu contains shortcuts to your profile switcher, apps. and settings. It also lets you start screen mirroring and put your Fire TV to sleep. Lastly, it shows the time and date, which can be handy to see without leaving the app that you’re in. Note that with Fire TV Smart TVs, holding the HOME button will open the same right-side menu as the SETTINGS button.
Access Hidden Display Resolutions & Refresh Rates
If you go into your Fire TV’s display settings, you’ll have the option to switch between 720p, 1080p, and 2160p resolutions which are all locked to a 60Hz refresh rate. There are actually many more resolution and refresh rate combinations that can be accessed by holding the UP and REWIND buttons on your remote simultaneously for about 5 seconds. Doing so will cause the Fire TV to begin to cycle through all the resolution and refresh rate combinations that your TV supports. With this feature, you can drop down to 480p if you want, which is useful if you’re connecting to an old TV or tiny display. It also allows you to select 24Hz and 30Hz refresh rates, which might better match the content you are playing at the time.
Remap App Buttons
If you have a remote with app shortcut buttons at the bottom (e.g., Netflix, Prime Video, HBO, Disney+, Hulu, etc…), it’s possible to remap most of those buttons to launch any app that you want. Instructions on how to do so can be found here.
Switch TV Input
If your Fire TV remote has power and volume buttons, it can also switch inputs on your TV, Soundbar, or AVR even though it doesn’t have an input button. This is done by configuring the remote and using voice commands. Details on how to do this can be found here.
Control Bluetooth Headphone/Speaker Volume
If you have a device running Fire OS 7, which includes the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube, 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick Lite, and Fire TV Stick 4K Max, then your remote can control the volume of heaphones or speakers connected via Bluetooth to your Fire TV. Just pair the heaphones/speakers and use the volume buttons on your remote. More details on this newly added feature can be found here.
Enable Voice View
For those who are visually impaired, the Fire TV has a feature called Voice View that will read out what is currently highlighted on the screen. To enable Voice View, press and hold the BACK and MENU buttons simultaneously for about 5 seconds.
Enable Screen Magnifier
Another Fire TV feature for visually impaired users is the Screen Magnifier, which allows you to zoom in/out and pan around the interface. To enable or disable the Screen Magnifier, press and hold the BACK and FAST-FORWARD buttons simultaneously for about 5 seconds.
Enable Text Banner
The final feature for visually impaired users is the Text Banner, which displays a large text description at the bottom of the screen of what is currently highlighted. To enable or disable the Text Banner, press and hold the REWIND and FAST-FORWARD buttons simultaneously for about 5 seconds.
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This is my favorite type of post. I’ll keep this handy until I master all of them. Thanks!
You know what, I realized that lately I’ve been focusing too much on “news of the day” posts and not doing enough of these kinds of posts with info that might be old but not known by a lot of people. I hope to change that and get back into writing more of these kinds of posts.
Hi there, this information is great and I’ve successfully remapped my fire tv 4k max buttons, but I’m a UK follower and think my buttons are slightly different, especially on my JVC Fire TV as I have ‘Live TV’ and ‘Apps’ buttons which I would love to remap as they are useless to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Ben
Good information!
Why does this website need to run scripts that are blocked by uBlock as bad? And why did you anchor the “warning” to disable my script bocker in a different way so now the warning at the bottom of the page “You are seeing this message because ad or script blocking software is interfering with this page.
Disable any ad or script blocking software, then reload this page.” cannot be blocked? Turn off the ridiculous tracker scripts on the page and quit violating peoples’ privacy!!!
Like most sites, I run ads to pay the bills. It’s those ads that are probably using the scripts you mention. If I turn off the ads, then this site would not exist, so, I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen. I, personally, am not tracking anyone and I have done nothing to prevent you from blocking scripts or ads. If you’re seeing a message or something has changed with your script blocker, it is out of my control and coming from the advertisers. If you can narrow down a specific ad that is causing issues and give me details about that ad, I can try to block that one ad from appearing on the site. I’m sorry I don’t have a better solution, but my site is not large enough to take advertisements directly, so I must use ad networks that give me limited control over what ads run on the site.
Great reply. I can’t get over the entitlement of the original comment and it’s rife all over the internet – everyone wants good quality content (which this is) for free. Why? Would you do your job for free?
Wow, Elias, as your non-credentialed, non-board certified commentating physician, I would highly recommend you publish an article about the dangers of high sodium intake diets, as you sure do get some salty commenters every now and again.
Much akin to the other aspiring Mensa applicant decrying the use of affiliate links (despite you clearly publishing your use of them), pay no mind to the shortsightedness of the trolls. These are easily the first group that would cry and whine should AFTVnews close up shop and not provide quality content, such as this article.
Take this as a compliment that you are considered to be THE source of all things Fire TV that people feel forced to visit this site and not, you know, not visit if they felt a ‘violation of privacy’ ;)
I run an ad-blocker. I don’t apologize for that because, frankly, portions of the net have become abusive in their practices.
Its disabled for aftvnews.
This is an affirmative choice that I made years ago.
Love your comment! As No one is forcing him to read your tutorial. I for one learned from it. Thanks for posting it!
I know, here’s a novel idea. STOP running the scripts that cause issues with script blockers wanting to steal too much info. You can make every excuse you want, and if I choose to block ads and scripts for my own privacy, I should be able to do so. The majority of people do NOT and I won’t affect the massive “income” you recieve from your ads in the least. To purposely run scripting that stops script blockers from working is unacceptable, period. You know the arguments and your ad servers are purposely in a war with script blocking software. I personally will NEVER click an ad on any website, and if your ad servers don’t get that by purposely doing this it LESSENS the chance anyone will click, they are extremely stupid.
Matt:
I’m an early adopter of computer technology. Back in the early 70’s we had people who gave clear answers and were helpful to all of us young geeks. They were altruistic and a rare find nowadays.
Elias is a similar individual, placed in this generation. Unlike you, when I find a deal or link that will add a small bit of revenue for him, I will be the first to click on it.
Mike
I noticed that the battery power level reading seems to be missing on the developer options menu. Am I just missing something or has it been removed.? Thx
I’ve noticed that the items in the system x-ray bar aren’t consistent across different devices and, unfortunately, the remote battery level is one of the ones that is usually missing. The developer menu does get updated every once in a while, so hopefully, Amazon corrects this issue in the next update.
Thanks for the info.
Thanks Elias! Putting this in my Pocket.
Great post, thank you.
Any known shortcuts for Recast functionality? Or would that be in a separate post? I seem to recall I saw instructions somewhere for how to refresh the guide to get new data using a shortcut on the Firestick remote, but I didn’t save it and have not been able to find it again.
I don’t know of any shortcuts related to the Recast or Guide. There isn’t really a way to manually refresh the guide data for the Recast. You might be thinking of the Settings > Live TV > Sync Sources menu that lets you update the channels that appear in the guide from 3rd-party apps (i.e., Sling TV, Pluto, etc…).
Thanks, but I wasn’t thinking of Sync Sources (which I wasn’t aware of so that’s helpful). At one point my guide wasn’t updating and I found a source that gave a shortcut on the remote to force an update. Unfortunately I didn’t bookmark it or write it down. Thanks anyway.
Thanks, Awesome Info Elias!
I’ve always been curious about Amazon’s “Worded Scale” for WIFI Signal Strength. They seem a bit vague to me, using terms like Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good (not sure if there is Excellent or higher?) Why not use a numerical percentage scale (0%-100%) to fine tune optimum placement?
At this point Amazon should throw in “Could Be Better” and “Not Too Shabby” just to mess with people.
When I doubt I use the Netflix Network Test. I’ve found it to be fairly accurate. I bet a lot of folks don’t even know it’s built into the app.
Slightly helpful at best
Thanks for this, particularly the reboot sequence.
Is there any way to finally get Amazon Fire remote to not run through batteries in a week or less?
Restarting, rebooting, etc. has not worked.
Do you change them when you get a notification? I just pop them out and back in again, “spin” them around and they’re fine. I’m using 99 Cent Store batteries and have used the same paired for a couple of months so far.
I lose batteries I have bought from Amazon I believe. Amazon version of Energizer? Maybe I’ll replace every three to six months. Try lithium+batteries. Or order from Amazon. 1/2 price of Major brands with lithium ion.
Can you recommend any blockers for the new virus called ‘Matt’.
Big up!
Great article! Thanks for all your hard work.
I have a couple 4K fire sticks and none of them have gotten this 7.x update. I’m waiting for it so I can control my Bluetooth headphones with it. Is there any way to side load it?
The Fire TV Stick 4K will likely never be updated to Fire OS 7. That doesn’t mean it will never get the ability to control Bluetooth volume though. Right now it just seems like Fire OS 7 devices have gotten the feature so we can just hope that it also comes to Fire OS 6 devices, like the Fire TV Stick 4K, at some point.
Great info! We appreciate it mucho.
Not exactly a tip or secret, but I sure would like to see Amazon implement a ‘TURN ON CC on REPLAY’ feature for their Fire TV devices/remotes. A 10 second rewind using the Remote wheel would turn on CC for that replay section and then back to OFF. Roku has spoiled me to this and it would sure be nice to see it implemented on Fire TV devices.
+1
Would love to see this option implemented.
Roku user in the family won’t consider a fireTV device because it lacks this feature.
Lots of good stuff here. I could use help with another issue: I have 2 Sony TVs and use a Firestick with both so I can watch more sports at the same time. Problem is that either remote I use is applied to both TVs. Does anyone know if there is a way to program a Firestick remote to one specific TV? I think this might be tricky since both are SoTV. Thank you in advance for advice.
Since your TVs are both made by Sony, they likely use the exact same IR profile for control, so no matter what if a remote can control one TV it will also control the other. If the TVs are identical models, you’re out of luck. If not, your only hope is that there is an alternate IR profile that happens to work on only one of the TVs. On the Fire TV, go to Settings > Equipment control and select to change the IR profile of one of the remotes. If there are alternate IR profile options, then select it and see if it controls only one of the TVs. Keep going through all the alternate profiles (again, if there even are any) until you find one that controls only one TV or you’ve tried them all.
Any way to pair a remote besides the usual way?
I have a FireTV Cube V1 that was factory reset and no paired remote. I can’t get past the login to Amazon screen because I can’t connect a remote. I try the phone remote and the ENTER (Center navigate button) does not work when trying to sign in.
So basically, right now I have a useless Cube.
Sorry, I don’t know of any way to get past that initial setup screen without having a real Fire TV remote. Your best option, if you don’t want to buy a new remote, is to borrow one from someone just to get past the setup process. Once the Cube is set up, then you can just use the Fire TV mobile app from then on.
I have a bunch of remotes, how do I pair it if I can’t get past the initial Amazon sign in screen?
Never mind, reading is fundamental…I should have read through the whole thing. Thanks Elias, you are a great resource.
Great information here. I believe it was here a while ago where I discovered mirroring. GreT stuff. Thanks again.
How can I get all of the channels in numerical order?
I don’t even know what the buttons on the Fire Stick remote are. When you say hold the “select” and “play” buttons simultaneously I am lost. I have the new 3d Gen Fire TC Stick with voice remote. I wish it came with a quick start guide explaining what the buttons do.
I’ve added a guide to the top of the post for you and others to understand what each button is called.
You don’t know what a play button is? Sorry, I don’t believe you.
Pity there’s no quick way to turn subtitles on/off
Is there a way to set a sleep timer on Fire stick or perhaps an app? Would love to only need one remote
I was trying to expland my storage and some how un rooted my 4k fire stick. Was using x-plore.
How do I fix this. Please HELP?!
Thank for sharing. All of your updates, shortcuts have been spot on!
Utlizing ‘Downloader’when Peacock wasn’t available, You’ve consistently score
Just started reading your article (I’ve emailed it to me) The 1st article is already of use,as i often have to unplug the system.I have also looked at various ads hoping this will be of help.Hoping i find other Jems thanks.
This was extremely useful. I’ve been following some fire stick YouTube channels for years, and they’ve never been as helpful as your post. Thank you
Why does my Firestick jump stations if I’m watching 402 it will jump to 401 on its on very frustrating please help
Thanks for this useful information and just maybe you could help me with a particular issue I have;
As you know, today (in the US) it’s possible to install Roku Channel on the FTV stick, which I did. The problem is that in the Live TV of the Roku channel I need the “*” (asterisk) button for certain command, only to be found on the Roku remote.
Would there be any shortcut/emulation to generate this button on the FTV remote?
Cheers
I cleared my cache and data on an app and it made me re enter user name and password. Fortunately while poking around I managed to find a “ show password” which I screen shotted. Now my buddy is having the same issues with the app ( which was installed on fire stick by a third party ). We have the user name but cannot for the life of me remember where I stumbled across the “show password”. Any ideas of where this is hidden?
settings- application- force stop-clear data-clear cache- Here is my issue under Amazon Kids – force stop —–the banner runs stating “FreeTineFTVApp_v3.10_Build-1.0.223313.0.10657″ and Amazon App Store—–” force stop-release-8.5007.5.v.x.2170640_422165210.” Cant use the force stop on either of these applications
I have a Roku remote (5th one in your picture above) it doesn’t have a power button. Nor volume buttons. So I have to use 2 remotes, can I “re-map” any buttons to do those things? And also I still need a input button.
My fire stick tv stops at the first logo fire stick and then boots up optimization screen then resets and does the same. Iv tried every remote combination it doesn’t work.
I really wish these remoted had a “lock” option so that if you touch a button by mistake, this could be locked. Maybe pressing 2 buttons at the same time for 3 seconds or something like that.